There Is Just Us

The only time I ever feel like I really belong somewhere is when I am home with my partner and three kids. “Home” is a word laden with so much meaning, too much, mainly because it has no permanence for me, and because it has multiple interpretations. I don’t have a childhood home where I grew up in to look back on, and at this point I don’t even know if I have a country to fall back on in times when I feel completely disjointed. My heart jumps between oceans and seas, pulled into places that no longer look the same as they do in my brain. People identify me as British from my accent, which despite 31 years living outside of the UK I have not lost, but I’ve always felt as British as I feel French. Nowadays I feel more of a mishmash of everywhere I have been rather than a strong tie to one country, even if it is the country where I was born, and where generations and generations of my family members lived and died.

I moved to New York City in 2005. Before that there was rural England, town England, The Netherlands, city life surrounded by mountains France, a year in Israel, a few months in California, and London. I moved from Streatham, London, to Spanish Harlem in NYC, by way of the Lower East Side. I’ve been in this country for 14 years now, longer than I have lived in any other country. I never asked for French citizenship, even though I am eligible and France was home to me growing up, because it didn’t ever feel necessary. I applied for Canadian citizenship because I could, even though I had never set foot in Canada at the time, and had no ties to the country at all. Canadian citizenship and my multilingual skills gave me temporary status in the US, a status laden with so many restrictions, while my permanent resident application inched through years, decades, of time. Nowadays I am pondering on whether I should apply for US citizenship. Do I want it?

Pondering on it, not because this country feels like home, and not because I have fallen in love with this country, but because I want my US-born children to feel safe. I had a difficult, long, and very depressing immigration process that involved a lot of tears and heartache, and also choices that I may not have made if I actually had had a choice. My children’s father, my partner in life, is also an immigrant, and although he is native to these continents we call America, doesn’t come from Norway, or any new “desirable” country name the current president decides to tweet about this week. I often think about the concept of the “good” immigrant and wonder what you have to “be” to fit into that mold. We probably don’t fit into it, neither of us really wanted to be here, we just ended up in NYC, and fell in love with the city (and very much later with each other once our paths finally crossed). I think about citizenship because for one I am finally eligible to do so, but mainly because I don’t want my children to have to worry about us, or be separated from us, now or ever. I know what it feels like to not be allowed to live in the same country as a parent and siblings, and it’s not something I plan on revisiting, ever.

Is citizenship meant to feel like a transaction rather than actual belonging? My blood is undoubtedly very English and Welsh (and apparently Scottish), but I feel like a mix of England, The Netherlands, France, Israel, NYC, and now California, with a little bit of India thrown in, and a lot of Polish heritage, collected through my mother’s second marriage to a man I called Tatuś for part of my childhood. I love parts of all of the countries I have lived in, but do I belong to any of them? I have no idea.

Living for New York for a large part of my time in the US made it easy to pretend I lived on an island slightly apart from the rest of the country, skipping between relocations of England, France, Mexico and Israel faster than it would take me to walk two blocks on my beloved Lower East Side. Languages were everywhere, it was never too difficult to find a shakshuka that tasted like my uncle’s or a packet of Walker’s crisps, or even a perfect French omelette that reminded me of time spent in late winter on the slopes of a mountain in the Alps. I spoke French as much as I spoke English and while I still felt out of place in certain parts of my life, I was able to rectify that by quickly running to Orchard St. Of course I missed so many things from all of my different homes, but NYC made it easier to consolidate all of them together under one roof. That was the beauty of the city for me: I could be at home with parts of my multiple homes and feel like I belonged for a while.

Belonging... Is that not something that we all crave somehow? The need to belong with someone, to belong somewhere? For so many years I prided myself with the statement that I never belonged anywhere except NYC (or the Arava desert, or Grenoble, or Empingham, or Paris, depending on my mood). I would however still be plagued with days, weeks, of deep yearnings for home, a home that didn’t exist anymore. But I belonged on the street I worked, and I belonged amidst my ragtag group of friends from all over the world. I didn’t think I craved that sense of belonging until I actually came close to feeling like I belonged somewhere.

NYC was in no shape or form a bubble. Not for us immigrants anyway. For me it did often feel like I was hovering between the US and Europe, but I was fully aware of what was going on in the world, in the country. I always have been. It felt safer somehow, you could disappear into the streets and be swallowed up by the city’s protective arms. The only airport where I never had problems in when coming back from abroad was JFK. Every other border control has been a story I would euphemize to those around me because I was embarrassed, upset at letting myself be treated like that. Niagara Falls and Phoenix were the worst. Border control agents are obviously trained to diminish you as a person, reduce you to tears, to saying things in a tone of submission despite your intents to remain stoic and strong, and to make you feel guilty even though you are not. Guilty of what? Wanting to go “home”? In the end you really start to wonder why you are fighting to be there so hard: is it worth it?   

My own personal answer to that is that it was, because I met my partner, another immigrant but from a very different part of the world, and we have three amazing children together. We have made our own home together, here. Neither of us feel at home anywhere anymore, after years of living in places we never quite imagined ourselves living, but together we are home. Our children are growing up American, and Mexican, and Native American, and English, and French…  Isn’t that what America is anyway? We already make the US great, no need for an orange-faced despot to tell us the opposite.

We haven’t lived in NYC for a while now, and it’s harder for both of us to find the same sense of belonging in our current city. But still, it’s “home” for now. We still don’t know where to find fresh tamales first thing in the morning, and I have given up on finding HP Sauce anywhere accessible, or a proper pain au chocolat, but they are just minor inconveniences, aren’t they? I miss the sense of family that we had in NYC, the sense of community, and I doubt we will ever find the same here. But our “home” in NYC has changed, moved on, and evolved too. As you can see, home really does not have permanence for me, except when it comes to my family.

And belonging? It’s a fleeting sense. I feel it during certain marches and rallies, surrounded by other people who I know have a similar sense of floating here and there, digging in roots in a new place. It’s a feeling that starts in my stomach and rises, ending in spontaneous tears as my voice becomes one with other voices. But then we disperse, and that feeling is gone. It pops back up again here and there, a smell, a voice, a thought. It never will be a permanent feeling, but always a surprising one. Oh wait, I belong here in this moment!

There is nothing wrong with never quite feeling at home, never quite belonging to a place. As human beings our nature is to keep moving, to explore, to find each other. Borders are arbitrary and unnatural, barricades are really just a last ditch stand against our nomadic drive. There is no “other”, there is just us.  

DV Awareness Month: Suffering in the Shadows

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and it is extremely important to talk about how the most marginalized of us often suffer abuse in silence. Despite the current administration’s endeavors to restrict, imprison, and deport immigrants, there are still laws in place to protect immigrants who are subject to abuse and violence, no matter their status.

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) states that “all people in the United States (regardless of race, color, religion, sex, age, ethnicity, national origin or immigration status) are guaranteed protection from abuse under the law. Any victim of domestic violence – regardless of immigration or citizenship status – can seek help.” Sadly, however, the reality is that many immigrants living with abuse will continue to suffer in silence and remain with their abuser out of fear of being deported.

Immigrants may feel defenseless and particularly vulnerable in the face of abuse because they may not speak English, may not have a support system or family nearby to help them, and may simply just not know or understand US rights and laws. Their abusers may use their immigration status against them as a form of abuse, and the fear of deportation and possibly losing custody of children often overrides the fear of continuing to live with an abuser. Victims may also not know how or where to reach out for help, how to access domestic violence shelters, and how to request an interpreter if needed.

Immigrants make up 13% of the US population; around 76% of them have legal status of some form, and 24% are undocumented. It is estimated that 1 in 4 women will be victims of domestic violence in their lives; however, only 1 in 4 of those cases will be reported to the authorities. Domestic abuse cases are notoriously underreported so it is therefore easy to imagine that a more vulnerable portion of the population, such as immigrants, may be even more reluctant to report abuse and violence.

US immigration laws are very difficult to navigate, and often subject to change, which gives abusers many ways to control their victims. Abuse is not always physical, and certain forms of emotional and verbal abuse are not always easy to detect or describe, but can also cause significant distress and harm to the person being abused. There are several specific patterns of abuse that abusers will use to control and silence immigrant victims, in addition to other forms of abuse and control that are universal to both immigrants and non-immigrants:

Threats: while the threat of arrest and deportation is a big one, abusers may also use scare tactics such as threatening to withdraw an immigration petition, being granted full custody of children, or even the threat of harming the children of the abused.

Isolation: an abuser may make it very difficult for their victim to learn English, make friends within the community, have access to education, a phone and/or the internet, and may also limit contact with family in their home country.

Intimidation: an abuser may withhold information on immigration rights, and withhold or destroy legal documents such as passports, birth certificates, green cards, and social security numbers. Without these important documents an immigrant will not be able to open a bank account, go to school, or find a job, all of which would help them to become independent.

Economic abuse: an abuser may decide to withhold finances or not make them accessible to the victim, and cause them to lose their job by calling their employer to report they are undocumented (even if they are not).

Manipulation: an abuser may use the victim’s immigration status and sparse knowledge of federal laws to manipulate them.

If any of these abuse patterns are familiar to you, whether you are currently in an abusive situation or you know someone who is, it is important to know that you can seek help and that you have rights. Over the past year there has been a decline in reported domestic abuse cases amongst immigrants, mainly due to certain immigration changes, and the fear of immigrants’ statuses being revoked if they go to the police. Teens and young adults who worry that their DACA status will not be renewed may also not be so willing to report abuse out of fear of being marked for removal. Whether you are an immigrant married to or in a relationship with a citizen, a permanent resident or another immigrant, and whether you are undocumented or not, there are laws in place to protect you and punish your perpetrator. These same laws are in place for immigrant children who are suffering from abuse at the hands of a family member or other. Your rights are the same no matter your immigration status or relationship to your abuser.

Immigrants who are living with abuse and looking for a safe exit strategy can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline for access to local resources such as shelters and advocates, as well as low-cost or pro bono legal representatives who can help them navigate through any legal immigration proceedings. An advocate can help you go through the process of reporting the abuse, moving to a new home and/or a shelter, and starting a new life free of abuse. It is very important to request a lawyer who specializes in domestic violence cases as well as immigration law. It is also very important to not undertake any immigration proceedings without the help and presence of a lawyer. It is never advisable to file any paperwork yourself without the advice of a lawyer.

If you are the victim of domestic abuse through a US citizen or legal permanent resident, and married, or directly related to this person, you may be eligible to petition for a VAWA for Abuse Victims (Violence Against Women Act). While the name designates women, it is available to men and women, provided they meet the criteria. If you are an undocumented victim of abuse through a partner (documented or undocumented) you may be eligible for a non-immigrant U visa. If you are a victim of human trafficking you may be eligible for a T-visa. There are laws in place to protect everyone from abuse in the US, no matter what you immigration status may be, and you will not be deported for reporting your abuser.

It is not easy to live in the shadows, especially if those shadows are also shrouded by abuse. Even if immigration laws are constantly changing no one should feel that they cannot leave an abusive relationship, or report their abuser, out of fear of losing everything that they have worked towards in this country.

If you would like more information on how to leave an abusive relationship, please call the National Domestic Violence hotline at 1-800-799-7233 to get advice.

If you live in the Sacramento area these organizations can also help you: My Sister’s House and WEAVE.

Resources:

Information on the Legal Rights Available to Immigrant Victims of Domestic Violence in the United States and Facts about Immigrating on a Marriage-Based Visa Fact Sheet

Immigrants in the US have a right to live a life free of abuse

I Wish I Had Never Called The Police

The Facts on Immigrant Women and Domestic Violence

There Is Nothing Radical About Abolishing ICE

Have you seen the New Wells Fargo commercials? The one where the bank tries to prove that they are going to “earn back our trust”? Or the one that says “Re-established 2018” while featuring Mexican soccer fans chanting in front of the TV? Funny that, because at the same time as they are re-establishing themselves in the trust of the general public they are also aiding Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency that is ripping families apart across the country. One would have thought that after committing fraud on the level that they did so very recently they would by keeping out of the public eye.

Apparently not. Wells Fargo is one of the banks in charge of ensuring that private prisons get the financing they need to function and expand. And by doing so they are helping the prison business grow, and effectively saying they are not only OK with the expansion of prisons, but that they also agree with detaining migrants indeterminably.  

They are not alone.

ICE works like a business who outsources much of their needs. We all need to start calling out all of the organizations that support ICE: the Wells Fargos, the Microsofts, the HPs, the Salesforces, because they are ALL benefiting from the incarceration of migrants, children included, whether they are crossing the border, claiming asylum, or have lived in this country for years.

But let’s back this up a little, shall we? What exactly is ICE and why are we focusing on those who profit from this agency? What is this whole #AbolishICE talk about really?

I wouldn’t be surprised if up until recently most US citizens had no idea what or who ICE is. To be honest, I don’t think that many people still understand. ICE was created in 2003 and has since largely been expanded. The agency was specifically created after 9/11 to enforce immigration laws within the country, while Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) enforces them at and around the border. With ICE and CBP combined the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) now operates the largest federal law enforcement agency in the country. They are also becoming the largest jailers in the country, and continue to grow as immigration enforcement is ramped up under the Trump administration.

Wells Fargo, along with other consumer-facing banks such as JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America SunTrust, and BNP Paribas, finance private for-profit prison corporations such as Core Civic and GEO Group. These private prison groups are contracted by ICE to detain migrants, and in general rely heavily on credit to function properly on a day-today basis. If banks remove their financing the operational structure of these prisons will fall apart. (As a side-note Wells Fargo has also already invested in the construction of a border wall, and stands to benefit from militarization, guns, and fossil fuel development.)

Wells Fargo does not directly finance ICE in the way of giving ICE money. But Wells Fargo finances Core Civic and GEO Group’s debts, therefore helping them to basically run their businesses. By doing so they are therefore profiting from the existence of ICE, and complicit in all actions ICE performs.*  

Private, or for-profit, prisons are owned by third parties that are then contracted out by government agencies, usually on a set per-diem rate per prisoner or per bed. This means that the end goal of a for-profit prison is to make money, by keeping all of the beds full, and as with any business, these companies are always looking to grow. They are making billions of dollars in revenue every year, and have very murky backgrounds and reputations, something which I will come back to later on in this article.

When it comes to immigration, private prison corporations stand to profit immensely from the zero tolerance immigration policy that was introduced by Jeff Sessions and the Department of Justice (DOJ) back in May of this year. The current immigration laws 8 U.S.C  § 1325 and 8 U.S.C  § 1326 detail what unlawful border entry and unlawful border re-entry entail, and what type of punishment one risks when caught attempting to cross the border unlawfully. While these laws have been in place for quite a few years, prosecutions for illegal border crossings were not as frequent as they have been over the past few years (see “catch and release” practice). The zero tolerance policy has changed that by enforcing the detention and prosecution of any person attempting to cross the border without proper documentation, including those who claim asylum at a port of entry. Also, as it is illegal to incarcerate children for more than 20 days (see the Flores settlement), the current administration was able to find a loophole through which they could separate children from their parents.  

Zero tolerance is basically just a way for the government to detain, prosecute, and deport any immigrants coming through the southern border without due process, even though the law of due process is written in the Constitution.

Wells Fargo, Core Civic, and GEO Group are obviously not the only ones profiting from the incarceration and prosecution of immigrants.*. ICE receives a substantial budget from the federal government, millions of dollars that are to be used towards securing and managing borders, as well as enforcing and administering immigration laws. This budget is used to contract all types of services out to many different agencies. And these agencies are therefore receiving money off the backs of the deportation machine that ICE is.

So, who else profits from detaining immigrants?

In a nutshell:

• for-profit prison corporations
• non-profit centers
• money corporations (banks and private investment firms such as Vanguard and Blackrock)
• service contractors
• local town or city governments

Non-profit centers receive millions through the government to run the shelters. For example, SouthWest Key Programs, a non-profit that runs children’s centers in states along the southern border, has received over $500 million in funds from ICE this year, more than half of what they received in 2016.

ICE contracts with corporations such as MVM, Inc., a defense contractor, for transportation services, and General Dynamics who are in charge of the case management of separated children (of which they don’t seem to be doing a very good job of).

Microsoft currently have a $19.4 million contract with ICE for cloud services through their Azure platform. Lionbridge, a translation and localization organization, have a $2.2 million contract for interpretation and translation services. Amikids receive money for educational services, and HP for data center services. The list is extremely long, and Sludge has created a brilliant public spreadsheet that lists every contractor, service and contract amount. The more you scroll the sicker you get as you realize just how many companies are invested in and profiting from the incarceration of families.

In terms of local government contracts, approximately 850 local authorities contract with the federal government to detain immigrants in county jails. A county jail may therefore detain prisoners and immigrants together, because what usually happens is that the local authority will rent out beds to ICE. While there are many of these agreements in place in Republican-heavy areas, they are also to be found in blue counties, as well as so-called “sanctuary cities”. For example, up until recently Sacramento and Contra Costa County both had contracts with ICE (but neither renewed their contracts most likely due to outside pressure). Sacramento’s County Sheriff Department lost over 6 million federal dollars when the Sacramento Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 not to renew the contract, and ICE had to move their detainees from the county correctional center to a federally-run prison. While immigrant activists rightfully see this as a win, Sacramento County’s notorious anti-immigration sheriff Scott Jones did not.

There are many incentives to contracting with ICE, such as the most obvious, federal funding and employment, but citizens, voters, need to start questioning whether they really want their local governments to be profiting from the mass incarceration and deportation machines this country has created.

Do YOU want your government to receive money in return for arresting and detaining people whose only crime is to be living in this country without papers? (Keeping in mind that MS-13 has never really been an issue in the US, despite what the president says).

If we dig a little deeper into the business of criminalizing immigration it all gets even murkier. Private prisons may also be overseen by local officials, but they are still run by the private corporations, and immigrants are being detained wherever there is space to put them. This could mean hundreds of miles away from their families and homes. At the same time DMV offices may also be working directly with ICE by providing them with a list of people who are undocumented. Local prosecutors or jails may be alerting ICE whenever they come across someone whose immigration status may be questioned. These are areas where we can demand transparency, and uphold our local governments to protect their immigrants. I personally know of one person in Sacramento who was arrested by ICE agents waiting for him the moment he was released on bail from court… And Sacramento is supposed to be a sanctuary city! As long as the general population turns a blind eye to these happenings they will continue to take place. Are you willing to let your elected officials sell out your immigrant communities?

This map shows all of the areas where local governments have contracts in place with ICE for immigrant detention. If we hold our local agencies and authorities accountable and demand they refuse to cooperate with ICE, then the power that ICE holds over our communities will be weakened. And that is how we can start effectively dismantling the machine: by removing funding, services, and all the workings of the internal machinery.

It’s not just banks and companies who are profiting from immigration detention either. Our lawmakers are receiving money from private prison companies through PACs (Political Action Committees) and/or direct donations. California lawmakers, for example, have received a lot of money from GEO Group and Core Civic, with Democrats raking in more of this prison cash than the Republicans. Granted, the Democrats are bigger than the Republicans in California, which would therefore account for the bigger spend, but still, how can you state you are fighting for immigrant rights while accepting money from the companies that detain them?

Even Gavin Newsom, a popular progressive who is running for governor this year, received $5,000 from GEO Group! And half of California’s LGBT caucus also accepted cash from private prison corporations. Private prison lobbying is certainly a thing. Candidates then turn around and donate money to immigrant causes. How does this even make sense? Do they feel less hypocritical that way? It’s time we started calling them out on these practices. I certainly wouldn’t want to vote for someone who accepted money from the same companies that are profiting from the criminalization of immigration. Would you?

On the other hand we have charities such as RAICES who are publicly declining donations from companies who continue to contract with ICE, preferring to remain true to their cause and word. Publicly calling these contracts out works. Companies like Salesforce and Microsoft try to hide their dealings with ICE behind veils and denials, but the exchange of money is proof that they are complicit in ripping families apart. If they pulled the plugs on their contracts they could help end the way ICE works today. They obviously are not going to do this if we ask nicely by knocking lightly on their doors, so we need to put pressure on them to do so.

Circling back to private prisons and the growing power that they wield over the country: new, larger centers are being built, not only along the borders, also within the country, to make room for all of the people that ICE is detaining*. Detaining undocumented aliens isn’t a new issue, but the ramping up of arrests and detentions is. Especially of immigrants who have not committed any crimes, and have been living in the US for years, decades even. Families are being ripped apart at the border, but also all over the country.

Often the location of centers has little to do with the border and the number of immigrants, but more to do with infrastructure, cost, collaborations with the local authorities, and the time required to be up and running. If a center can be up within a month next to a small town in Iowa, but would take a year to build in Texas, then ICE is going to run with Iowa. The main point is that these centers are appearing rapidly all over the country. And the military is collaborating with DHS to house as many migrants as possible too. 

Everyone wants a piece of the pie, but no one wants to admit how complicit they are in the making of that pie.

There are certain immigrant detainment requirements and standards that ICE is supposed to adhere to, however, a recent report by the DHS revealed that internal inspections often do not comply with requirements and are not frequent enough to ensure corrections are upheld. Basically the DHS concurs that ICE does not adhere to detention standards, but at the same time won’t really provide a proper solution to this issue apart from an “ICE will do better now!” Another internal report, from December 2017, provides a list of many basic human rights violations: abuse, withholding of necessities including medical care, and so on and so forth. Same conclusion: “ICE will do better”. And still, children are locked up in cages in freezing centers, people are dying in detention, people are being sexually abused and silenced, pregnant women are being shackled and denied medical care, sometimes leading to miscarriage, just to name some of what appears to be rampant abuse and violation. Sen. Kamala Harris has introduced legislation to end abuse in detention centers, but until ICE and those they employ are held properly accountable for their abuse nothing will change. You only have to look at allegations from Adelanto Processing Center, and Otay Mesa Detention Center, amongst many others, to see that noting is being done. Immigrants are being treated worse than criminals.

In addition to ICE continuously violating human rights, their contractors’ treatment of detained migrants is also pretty dire. GEO Group and Core Civic’s notorious history of abuse and neglect is common knowledge these days, but other companies such as MVM have also been accused of abuse. Human rights violations are not just restricted to detention centers: they are regular occurrences in all of ICE’s operations. And while ICE is now the largest federal law enforcement agency, they are also the least policed internally.

If you are a white US citizen with no close ties with immigrants you have most likely never seen or heard of an ICE raid in your area. Maybe you have read about them on the news recently, but you are most likely blissfully unaware of how they go about arresting people. Arrests within the country have gone up significantly, and raids are often conducted military-style, or with agents lying in wait outside schools or courts. ICE currently employs over 20,000 people in 400 offices around the country, and they are literally terrorizing immigrant communities in the US. (The DHS actually currently employs over 55,000 armed law enforcement officers, making it larger than the FBI). It’s no secret that the current administration has established an ongoing pattern of dehumanizing as well as targeting black and brown people, and ICE follows this pattern by continuously targeting immigrants of color. White, European, immigrants seem to be left alone for the most part.

We have to talk about these issues as they stand without beating around the bush: ICE is an agency built on fear, expanded by hate, financed by big business, and left to run rampant. This is why ICE needs to go.

~~

Conclusion: immigration has effectively been criminalized. With the introduction of the zero tolerance policy, migrants are now being detained and prosecuted, whether at the border or within the country. Those who are deported face 10 year or even permanent re-entry bans, and are usually detained for months, even years during the prosecution process. Operation Streamline is being expanded, where migrants are prosecuted in large groups, all chained together in court, without proper due process. Small peaceful pro-immigrant protests are surrounded by cops while ICE hovers outside Hispanic supermarkets and walks into Greyhound buses demanding proof of citizenship and/or immigration documentation. And what about all of the stories of abuse and human rights violations that people are reporting at the hands of ICE agents as mentioned above? These stories are not of one-off rogue agents, but deeply embedded into the ICE way of life, according to internal and external reports.

Ending family separation is just the visible tip of the iceberg, because once you go deeper there is a lot of dark matter buried right under the surface of the water. The demand that ICE be abolished completely is not a radical one, but a necessity. ICE was born out of fear and hatred of the “other”, has expanded on that foundation, and been left to their own devices to do all of the dirty deeds no one wants to talk about. Many people only started making a fuss about ICE because of the zero tolerance policy, but those of us who have to live with the idea that one day ICE is going to be knocking at our door, those of us who have a detailed plan of action for our kids and other loved ones “just in case”, know exactly what they have been getting away with in our communities for years.

ICE is not held accountable for any of their actions, and never will be, and should therefore be disbanded. We can continue to demand that Congress defunds ICE, but, more importantly, we must also push all of the companies that profit from ICE and from criminalizing immigration to cut all ties with them. Shaming them into doing so in the public eye is the best possible way to make this work.

Once the cards start falling the beast will lose its power and ability to function. It’s time to get rid of the status quo, fighting only when the rot becomes visible. There is nothing radical about requesting a rogue police force who operates on fear and targets people of color to be abolished, neither is there anything radical about demanding a complete overhaul of the current inherently problematic immigration system.

If you want to join in and fight against ICE, for-profit prisons, mass incarceration of black and brown people, police brutality, and the criminalization of immigration there are actions happening all over the country on a regular basis. Cosecha has called for a national day of action on July 31st to #AbolishICE that will target government institutions and corporations to end their contracts with ICE. Mijente are demanding the full scale decriminalization of immigration. The ACLU have information on their website on how to get involved. Check Facebook for local activist groups and events, and join a protest or other action. Many cities around the country are staging #OccupyICE protests to demand that ICE be dismantled.

*The issues with private prisons are obviously not only limited to immigration detention, but to incarceration in general. For more information on for-profit mass incarceration, institutionalized racism, and the school to prison pipeline I highly recommend Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy and Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow).

How Can I Help From Outside the US?

Over the past few days quite a few of my friends and acquaintances outside of the country have asked how they can help reunite migrant children with their families. I understand that it can often be hard to navigate through the sheer amount of information and links that are shared with us via different sources, and US legislation is often hard enough for citizens to wrap their heads around, let alone those who live in other countries.

This is what has been happening recently.

Before I go into more detail on US immigration issues below and lose you, here are the ways you can help from abroad:

1). Join a protest in your city in your country, or organize one. For example, a friend of mine just protested in front of the US Embassy in Wellington, NZ. There are massive demonstrations planned in the UK in July when Trump visits.

2). Continue to talk about the terrible things that the US administration is doing in terms of human rights. There are many of them, so feel free to pick the one that affects you the most. But don’t stop sharing, discussing, and talking about these major issues. Children who are being ripped from their parents is something that we cannot allow to be normalized. We know what happens next. Black kids being shot in the back by law enforcement is another. While news outlets have been focused on family separation another unarmed black teen, Antwon Rose, was shot in the back by a police officer this week.

Here are some news outlets that I find helpful when it comes to sifting through the news, but of course you can use your own: The Guardian, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Shaun King

3). Donate to different charities that are raising money to pay for the bonds and legal representation of those who are currently detained and separated from their children. Bonds go between $1,500 to upwards of $10,000 so every little bit counts. RAICES is one of these organizations who are trustworthy, and have hit the ground running. KIND help protect migrant children, whether they arrived with parents or unaccompanied. There are quite a few others listed in this article here and here.

The fastest way for parents to get out of detention centers in order to search for their kids if is their bail is posted.

4). Sign petitions. A friend was concerned because she thought that she wasn’t allowed to sign an ACLU petition because she isn’t here in the US. I told her that I sign petitions and contact my representatives all the time band I am not American. Sign away!

Here are some good ones:

• ACLU – Separating Families is Inhumane
• Stop Separating Families – Amnesty International
• Change.org – Keep Families Together
• ActionAid UK

5). You can email Trump if you want to get a load off your chest here, but honestly, I doubt he reads anything that isn’t less than 280 characters long anyway.

6). If you speak any Meso-American indigenous languages such as Zapotec, Nahua, Ma’am, Quich’e, Maya, Mixe, Mixteco - not Spanish), contact RAICES to volunteer your skills as this can be done remotely.

7). Follow activists such as Shaun King, Allison Brettschneider, Linda Sarsour, Women's March, Cosecha, United We Dream, Moveon.org - they can guide you on how to help and share information.

In a nutshell the current president based a lot of his campaign on cracking down on immigration from the southern border and from countries where the main religion is Muslim. He also promised to build a wall along the southern border to “protect” US citizens from the people that he seems to think are running in droves across the border every day. Obviously anyone in their right minds knows that his rhetoric is false, ridiculous, and disgusting, but unfortunately many people believe it. Trump and his sidekicks are white supremacists and are working hard on implementing the promises they made in 2016. For the past year Congress has been in a deadlock on immigration reform, with the Republicans holding first the Dreamers, and now migrant minors, hostage. Most of the Democrats (currently in minority) refuse to pass hardline bills that include sections such as funding a border wall, and ending family immigration processes that currently exist (what Trump likes to call “chain migration”). So while these bills keep getting shut down and discarded, Trump and his cronies try to find loopholes by implementing new policies such as the recent “zero tolerance” policy. And while he signed an Executive Order this week to end the separation of families at the border, it hid some other dark new policies that we need to continue to fight. In addition to this, the thousands of children who have already been separated from their parents have not been reunited with them, and no one can tell us if they will ever be.

The immigration system in this country is a huge mess, and a mess that the government profits from, whether it be from the millions they recoup in immigration fees, the billions they collect in taxes from undocumented immigrants, or from the private prisons where they detain immigrants for months on end for the sole misdemeanor of crossing the border illegally. Having lived here for well over a decade on a temporary visa, undocumented, and finally with a green card, I have seen the system in and out and I know what it’s like to live in the shadows, on the edge of my seat fearing deportation. I still breathe a sigh of relief when I come back into the country without being sent into the secondary room for interrogation.

But I have never had to fear my children being taken from me when I leave the house (although I do nowadays because I know where this administration is heading). I am not running from violence, abuse, and/or poverty. I can’t stop thinking of these children screaming for their parents, thrown into cages, of the parents, ripped away from their little children, some still exclusively breastfeeding. Who does that? Evil does that. If you didn’t believe it before you had better believe it now.

You can read more of my immigration stories and articles here. Feel free to contact me if you would like me to add yours to the collection.

The Definition of Cruelty

The definition of the word cruel is “wilfully causing pain or suffering to others, or feeling no concern about it”. Separating children from their parents is just that: cruel.

I can tell you for a fact that no parent leaves their home with their child(ren) to make a dangerous and extremely difficult journey to another country for fun. It’s not a decision that any parent would make lightly. I’ve written about the border crossing experience before, a true life story from 15 or so years ago, and it’s not something that anyone does just because they woke up that day feeling like taking a little trip somewhere. The conditions of immigrant detention centers are a lot worse today, bordering, and frequently crossing the border of, inadmissible. Prisons are a major business in the US, and immigrant detention centers are also part of this business. People are held for days, weeks, years even, in cells and cages, some even in tents, in freezing cold and boiling hot temperatures, without the ability to communicate with family and friends outside the centers. I’ve known people to disappear suddenly and reappear again 6 months or so later, unceremoniously dumped on the other side of the border. What good is it to anyone to detain someone for so long for the sole act of trying to walk across the border? Because it’s a business, and many people are profiting from it.

Obviously immigration detention centers have never been “nice” places to stay, and undocumented immigrants were arrested before Trump was elected president. However, the spike in arrests and deportations of law-abiding people, people who have been here for decades, and the deterioration of conditions in detention centers are just some of the proof that this current administration’s agenda is more about dehumanizing the non-white immigrant, demonizing entire populations, and targeting those who are the most innocent, than actually making the country a safer place.

The family separation policy is not even a law, but already over 2,000 children have already been separated from their families at the border, breastfeeding babies included, in less than 6 weeks. The administration has created a loophole in the system, deeming that every person who crosses the border illegally should be prosecuted, and as you cannot let a child go to jail with their parents they are taken from them and thrown in detention centers, often under horrific circumstances. It is then up to their parents to find them and get them out again, usually with little help or recourse to help. Also, if you have been following what’s been going on in Congress for the past year or so you will have noticed that when it comes to immigration policies, hardcore Republicans have been using immigrants as bargaining chips to get what they want. Up until now it was the Dreamers, but you can be sure that it will soon be immigrant children and how they are separated from their parents. “If you give us the wall we will let the kids stay with their parents”.

We all know this is completely immoral, wrong, insanely disgusting, cruel, and abhorrent. I don’t need to explain why, because those who are up in arms about this know full well why, and those who aren’t are not only being gaslit by their government, they also won’t change their minds anyway. For centuries this country (and many other European countries for that matter) have been in the habit of dehumanizing races other than white in order to maintain white supremacy, so the sheer amount of people who are able to look away from the inhuman practice shouldn’t be that surprising. This should however just make us want to fight all the more to make sure these policies and this government are run into the ground.

Those who are throwing up their arms in mock outrage proclaiming how “unamerican” this policy is need to understand that it has existed for centuries. Children of slaves were taken from their mothers (while their mothers were forced to nurse white babies), Native American kids were removed from their homes and shoved into boarding schools or adopted out into white families. And this is just the US. I don’t think we need to explain how the Nazis in Germany separated children from their parents. It was one of the first things they did when they rounded up families. Or what Stalin’s officers did when they were rounding up Poles and sending them to Siberia in 1939-40. It’s not that we don’t learn from history, it’s just that we seem to refuse to believe that atrocities can happen again, so they just keep on happening, hashtag “no more” and “never again”.  

This isn’t just Trump though, it is also all of those people who are around him, all of those people who have been waiting in the sidelines for their moment to arrive. Remember, Hitler himself didn’t come up with the “Final Solution” (mass extermination of Jewish people): Himmler, Goering, and Heydrich were the ones who devised the main plans. We have to be aware of all of these people, some of which were elected a long time ago, way before Trump. Keep an eye on people like Stephen Miller for example. It’s in everyone’s best interest to know who is representing us. It’s even more important that those of us who are immigrants know who are representing us (and not representing us at all).

Saying that, I noticed something a long time ago, but it’s become way more apparent now... So many immigrants from Europe whose situation is considered “safe” lower their eyes and look away when you try to talk about immigration policies and human rights issues with them. They wave their green flag far and wide on social media, but if you ask them to sign a petition or join a march they disappear. I don’t think it’s because they don’t care, but their “safety” is a privilege that they don’t want to lose: “we are OK now, we can’t afford to think of others”. Thing is they never really had to fear ICE knocking on their door, never had to fear losing their children, their livelihood, their lives anyway. It’s a privilege that makes me slightly sick. There is also often that back thought of “well you know you could have done it the “right” way”. I’ve seen it flash in people’s eyes when I tell my story or when I tell someone else’s story. Privilege. Even as an immigrant it is your fundamental right in this country to benefit from freedom of speech, and you cannot be penalized for standing up against what is wrong. Every voice counts when it comes to rising up and fighting against injustice. A lot of what is happening in this country hits very close to home for my family, and I can’t just stand back and watch it happening just because I finally have a green card. No one is safe.

This is why I ask ALL immigrants to stand up and fight against each and every damning immigration policy. Especially those who have their green cards, or those who are naturalized. As I said, no one is really safe.

“This is what happens when you operate on emotions” is a phrase that caught my eye on Twitter this past weekend, a phrase voiced by a troll trying to tell us all that separating families is OK. But if we don’t operate on emotions then we cannot claim to be humans anymore, can we? If a child crying for their parents doesn’t make YOUR heart hurt then there is something intrinsically wrong with you. If you believe that one person has more rights than another based on where they were born then you are just perpetrating the hate that is rotting our existence from the core. If we use our privilege and standing to hurt and destroy others rather than protect and aid them then we are the problem. But staying silent and turning our heads away from everything that is happening makes us just as complicit. The only solution I see is standing up and fighting against all of this.

It’s not enough to just share articles on social media or talk about it with friends. We need to STAND UP AND RAISE OUR VOICES. Here are some ways to help. But really, keep calling and writing to your representatives, and ask them to support Senator Feinstein’s Keep Families Together Act. Even if your representatives are aligned with your beliefs write to them anyway: the more support they have the harder they will fight.

Apathy is the bane of our society. We have to be better at protecting each other.

You can read all of my immigration stories and articles HERE. If you are interested in having your own story told, please don’t hesitate to contact me!

Misplaced Fear and the Consequences

When I was a kid there was a wall that separated West and East Berlin, and I imagined the Iron Curtain was a real curtain, cutting one half of Europe off from another. I actually went to Poland on the train before the wall came down, and the experience is still stamped in my memory, even though it was nearly 30 years ago. A wall is never the right option, just ask anybody who has lived alongside one.

I realized a long time ago that it’s easy to feel a significant distance from a lot of things that are happening in the world when you live in the US, that there is a real false security blanket that you jump and hide under. It’s easy to forget about certain things because they are so far away and not on your doorstep… Sometimes it’s difficult to understand the reality of the world when it feels so distant. It’s not hard to find a small spot in this vast country that feels somewhat safe. Everyone needs somewhere where they feel like they belong.

But belonging is apparently only allowed if you tick the right boxes. Otherwise it’s just fake news, bad judgment, and rank with deception and disappointment.

You know, you think that you’ve heard everything; your skin is thick enough to deal with all the ignorance; words don’t hurt, they have no idea, it is their fault, but they don’t know ME or my family etc etc. But every day one phrase out of all of them lingers and chips away at your confidence, at your armor. You scroll through social media and you see one report of arrest and deportation after another, and these people are YOU. These families are YOURS. You don’t know them personally, but you do, you know what happens when one of you doesn’t answer the phone, isn’t home on time. You know the questions, the fears, the heartache, and also the happiness, and the joys. It doesn’t matter where we are from, we all get it. And with every person who gets picked up my heart hurts. I see people sharing the articles and saying how disgusting it is and how this can’t be happening here and how it’s not possible and this is not the US...

But it is.

I see comments from people I actually thought I knew, berating the fact that some politicians care more about immigrants than homegrown Americans, and I wonder if they actually follow what is happening in Congress, or do they just decide that creating a divide is more important than fighting the real enemy? A person who has been here since they were a year old and is now 30 shouldn’t be represented because there are still homeless people on the streets?! The logic makes no sense and I don’t understand why people even use it.

I hear the words, the backhanded comments that are made to ensure we know full well we don’t have the same rights as them, that we are criminals, that we made a choice and we need to deal with the fallout of that choice. I hear the words, telling us our kids are not as important, that we only had them to secure a spot in this country. I hear the unsaids, the looks, the fake concern, the “well you could have thought of that befores”... Why do you think we keep our distance?

I’m disappointed. I’m so disappointed. I’m disappointed in this country I finally thought was my home. I’m disappointed in those who still call themselves “expats” so they can pretend they are different from those who are immigrants. I’m disappointed in those who have become citizens and who aren’t trying to fight for our rights, because they don’t have anything to lose anymore. I’m disappointed in those of you who got married and are too scared to lose your own status that you won’t stand up for those who never had one to begin with. I’m disappointed that people won’t read through the bills and the articles and between the lines and understand that these immigration policies affect everyone adversely, whether they are citizens or not.

But my heart is still warmed by those who care; by the Dreamers who face the risk of deportation every day but are still out there, protesting, making their voices heard; by the real allies and the real friends, the ones who don’t roll their eyes when they see us share another FB post or blog post, who call and write to their reps every day; and by the articles and books I read that show me that we ARE important and that there are people who are willing to fight and stand up for us, especially those who have so many other battles to fight of their own.

I know I should probably keep my mouth shut and my head down and hope that by being silent it will all be OK. But remaining silent in the face of injustice isn’t something that I do, whether it affects me directly or not. This particular topic does affect me directly and it’s not easy to not get emotional about it, to remain strong and to still trust, to still believe we have a place here.

I’m not going to tell you to call your reps anymore. You can’t force people to be involved... It’s a hard lesson to learn, but also a necessary one. I’m not going to ask you to donate your money or your time or your energy towards a cause that you don’t understand or that doesn’t affect you directly. If you can’t stand up for the kids who stood next to you when you all pledged allegiance to the flag back in elementary school, then my words aren’t going to change your views. If you can’t muster up the energy to protest the deportation of immigrants who served in the US Army, then I doubt you are going to care about the cooks and cleaners and farm workers and nannies and everyone else that you don’t ever notice.

There is a lot of narrative around extraordinary immigrants, those who are going places, making huge differences, and while those awesome people should be celebrated we must also remember that all of the others, who often do the things that most people take for granted, those who work two, three jobs, are also human beings and deserve to be treated as such. Sometimes it’s easy to focus on the extraordinary and forget about the rest. Especially because of the narrative this government likes to parade around, comparing Dreamers to gang members, and all (non-white) immigrants to welfare thieves. NO human is illegal.

The Truth About Chain Migration

Chain Migration.

If you listen to Trump it sounds like a dirty word, something to avoid at all cost, a major problem that will affect you all. All these evil people coming here and dragging 100 family members along with them! Having kids here so that they can’t be deported and so their kids will sponsor them for citizenship immediately at birth. Immigrants, too many of them ruining our country with their drugs and their guns and rapist attitudes, getting their family members in through these chain migration loopholes!

It’s absolutely incredible how many people have NO IDEA how their immigration system works.

I think that citizen and immigrant alike can agree that the system is broken and it has been for many years. It absolutely needs to be reformed. However:

If I asked you to explain how many visas exist would you be able to tell me? If I asked you what each visa would entitle me to would you be able to tell me? If I asked you which visas provide a path to a more permanent solution would you know? If I asked you how long it takes to get a green card or citizenship or to bring a family member over would you know? If I asked you to explain the green card diversity program (or lottery) would you know? If I asked you to explain what TPS stands for would you know? If I asked you to point out an undocumented immigrant and a documented one in a crowd would you be able to? Or would you automatically point to a Mexican and then to a white European while realizing how prejudiced you are?

See, while I understand that it’s not necessary to understand the ins and outs of a very complex system, it IS important to understand how the system works if you want to comment on it. As immigrants we are able to tell you exactly how it works. We can tell you about all types of visas, and also about how long it takes to get one. We can tell you how much money we have spent on applications and lawyers just to be told that our case has been rejected. We can tell you that often you can be here for decades without any path towards citizenship. Not because we are too lazy to do the paperwork, but because it actually doesn’t exist. So if you want to talk about immigration and pathways to citizenship and taxes and benefits and anchor babies and chain migration please educate yourself before you say anything.

(Someone called one of my children that once by the way. Every time I think about it I feel like I am being kicked in the gut.)

So, chain migration. This seems to be on Trump’s shit list for some reason, because he really makes it sound like people are coming here in droves, dragging second and third cousins along with them. I can tell you that this is not how it works. I know because the reason I am here is because of this so-called “chain migration”. Basically, the current system allows for green card holders (permanent residents) and citizens to sponsor immediate family members. These family members used to be restricted to minor children and spouses, but they were extended a few decades back to include other family members such as siblings, adult children, and parents.

My mother was transferred from France to the US in 2000, and her company took care of pushing her H1B visa and then permanent residency through as fast as it could go. My sister and brother were minors at the time, so their green cards went through fast too. I was 22 in the year 2000, and my mother’s company couldn’t do the process for me as I wasn’t a minor. So my mother petitioned for my green card. I received it in December 2011, and only because in the meantime she had become a citizen. If she hadn’t I would still be waiting for it. And if I had got married in that decade to someone who wasn’t a US citizen I could have said goodbye to that green card.

That’s how chain migration works.

You wait years, decades even, for your number to come up. See, there are only 226,000 visas available for immediate family members every year, and there are specific priorities and per-country limits at play too. If my mother had been a citizen when she sponsored me I would probably have had to wait 5 years, not 11. If I had been married I would have most likely had to wait 20 or so. If I had got married in 2010 I would have had to start over again and wait another 10 or more years.

The current population of the US is approximately 324 million people. Every year 226,000 people are approved to become legal permanent residents through immediate family sponsorship, and these people have been waiting between 4 and 27 years on average for this approval to be granted. Trump’s chain migration claims are just a teeny tiny drop in the ocean of people who reside in this country. Chain migration is not coming to steal your job and your culture and your home.

I found legal loopholes that I was able to exploit, and lived for many years with the fate of my yearly visa renewal in the hands of an immigration official at the Canadian border. I have just started to write about all of the times I sat there waiting, wondering what stamp I would receive. Wondering who I would call to look after my cat if I was denied or deported. I have buried a lot of the fear, pain, and anger at how I was denied the right to live near my family. While today I am happy about the experiences I got to live during that time, it still makes me sad and mad to think about it. I spent too many years not being able to fully enjoy my life because I was too scared that one day it would be cut short and I would have to start over again somewhere new.

Dreamers, undocumented immigrants, chain migrants, immigration lottery beneficiaries: we are seriously a drop in your ocean of people. US born children can only sponsor others when they turn 21, so the whole “anchor baby” theory is ridiculous. I have been reading and listening to so many immigration stories recently, often wiping the tears away from my eyes, and relating to so many of them. So much bravery, so many dreams, and a lot of resistance.

You don’t need a wall. You don’t need to end chain migration (it doesn’t exist). You don’t need to end programs like TPS or the visa lottery. What you do need is to have a heart and actually understand how the process works. And I really hope that all of my white European immigrant friends are calling Congress every day to fight for the Dreamers, because the only real difference in it all is a plane ticket, a landing card, and ultimately the color of your skin.

Call Congress and demand your representatives that they say NO to a spending bill that doesn’t contain a Clean Dream Act. It takes a minute or two of your time, and you don’t have to be a citizen to make your voice heard. I know, because there are tons of us doing it every day.

When We Dig Too Deep We Forget To Reach Up High

In my time I have read some chilling things, fiction and non-fiction. I’ve watched some pretty scary movies and I have been very much aware of what happens in this world. While I continue to talk about love, diversity, equality, and finding that special core of truth in ourselves, I know that humankind is a difficult beast to quarry. Instead of aiming higher, up above the dark clouds or the thick fog shrouding the clear skies, we tend to dig down. Our intense need to create roots, or growing down, rather than expanding up, means that we often look for the easier route. Instead of choosing to grasp the hands of those around us, extending our limbs to others beyond our reach, we dig a hole for ourselves and chain a “private property” sign around our hole. We need the nourishment of rich soil to grow upwards, but it will only work if we look for the light to warm our growth. Burrowing roots into our personal holes just causes us to run round and round our own warrens, blindfolds causing us to bang our heads on the same old, worn, crumbling wall. All that damp darkness causes our brains to rot, selfishness and greed taking the place of the more universal quest of creating a better place not only for ourselves but for our fellow humans. Sadly we are more followers, led by the all too frequent power-hungry pied piper. Complacency is easier than reaction, and reaction is all too often just a learned response to something rather than a natural feeling. All too often we sit there more worried about the speed of our internet and why our neighbor has a better sound system than our's, rather than about the hundreds of thousands of people starving, displaced by war, worried about losing their homes, sleeping on the streets where the images of exploding limbs are slowly erased by the mind-numbing effects of cheaply cooked substances.

We don’t expand, we just implode. We can’t expand if we don’t accept that the world is a colorful place full of differences. We can’t expand if we just remain stagnant, believing the lies that others tell us, fearing the different. We can’t expand if we don’t look upwards and around us, rather than bunkering down. The stench of the ages is beginning to suffocate even the most adamant believers, but still, they continue to swim in the toxicity. A toxicity that is perpetuated and rolled back around: normalized.

If you blink that annoying image of a starving child will be replaced by an animated polar bear sharing a Coke with his family.

Don’t worry, you don’t have to feel sorry for those people who just fled the bombs pounding on their heads, they have cell phones so they can’t be that badly off.

Turn away, the old man mumbling to himself on the street corner was too weak-minded to figure out how to pull his bootstraps up.

Don’t feel bad about not caring, you have your own problems, anyway, right?

A few weeks ago I felt my anxiety peak to levels that were only a distant memory. Holding a baby on one hip, occupying the others with paper and pens and a TV show I had spent a whole day, and then week, calling senators, getting put on hold, writing emails and faxes out of despair, while scrolling through videos of passionate young adults protesting in front of the Capitol. Again the hammer came down, and again they stood up, again I picked up the phone, and finally got through. We were granted a short stay over the holidays until we go back to fighting again, but that short stay wasn’t really for us was it? I found myself yet again scrolling through articles on immigration, and then looking at the comment section. I know, this is not smart, but all the same, people are more likely to write exactly what they really think from behind a computer, the buffer between their little personal, stench-ridden holes and the outside world. One person’s comment may not reflect an entire society’s general opinion, but the more often the same comment shows up, the more you start to wonder about how deep we are entrenched in oblivion and absolute ignorance.

A man, or at least someone posting as a man, with a slightly trollish profile, posted his manifesto on immigration. It was long-winded, but I was nursing my youngest so I had the time to read it. It started off with the usual tired white supremacist anti-immigration blurb, stop chain migration, deport them all, stealing our jobs, our country is spending so much on illegal immigration etc etc. And then I got to a paragraph that was so disgusting, and written in such plain text that I had to reread it to make sure I had understood it properly. This person wanted to change the 14th Amendment (every person born in the US is a US citizen), remove all children whose parents are undocumented, strip those parents of their parental rights, and put the children up for adoption, and/or incarcerate them, and sending them back to the country of their parents after they are paroled. I saved a screenshot of the text but I am not going to provide a direct quote as it doesn’t need any more exposure than it already received. I KNOW that most people don’t think like this, or at least wouldn’t feel comfortable doing this. However, there ARE people who believe this is what needs to happen, and there are many more of them than we think. Complacency kills. It all starts somewhere, and will always trickle down eventually. A pound of human flesh here and a pound there, it will never, ever measure up, there is always another pound needed to balance the equation.

You are not between a rock and a hard place. You just need to look up and reach out. No more paralysis. No more believing that “these things only happen in other countries”. Because they have already been happening in your country. Our freedom is what we make it, and a main part of it resides in being able to live, not survive. I know there are so many of you who believe in a better place, who dream of an easier life, less anxiety, less hustle, but it’s so very important to see the bigger picture, and your government and people in power are not going to help you with that. If we don’t expand and step up, those who want power and riches and to rule over you will. My own worst nightmares are to lose my children and my partner, which is why the comment above hit me to the core. And because I am an empath it broke my heart for the millions of people it could affect in this country, and then all of the billions of people who have to fight every single day to make sure their children make it through. These people are my people, and our lives are entwined, as much as we would like to believe they aren’t. Nobody is immune.

Channel those fears into direction. Start at the bottom, and crawl out of the hole. The warmth of the sun on your fingertips is a lot more filling than the squelch of dank soil between your toes.

Don't Fail The Dreamers

The smell of coffee in the morning comforts me. That moment just before you are wide awake, when all is a little hazy, mid-dream world, makes me happy. That is the moment when there is no stress, no anxiety, no rush. I listen quietly for the sound of three little beings breathing in the early morning light, knowing that it will be the only peace I will encounter for the rest of the day. I’m not really a morning person but I love the morning. For so many years I wandered aimlessly wondering where I would feel at home, just to find out that the answer would be nowhere and everywhere. I am at peace with that now, and at peace with my feet wanting to go in one direction and my heart in another. Travel takes time nowadays, and time isn’t always easy to find. Travel also requires money, and quite a bit of it too, so it becomes more of a dream rather than a necessity. Next time we travel we will be moving on again. Who knows where. Nowadays I just know that I don’t mind mornings so much.

I don’t have fears about starting over again, because I have done it so many times. My fears are more primal, run a lot deeper than that. If you told us to leave tomorrow we would, our ties to one another, not so much to this country. I promise to teach my children about where they were born, the truth, dark times and bright lights, about the genuine and the fake, and about how age-old prejudices, fear, and hypocrisy can rot a country from the core. I promise to also teach them about where we, their parents, were born, about the traditions that we brought with us, and about the lives that we gave up to be here, especially what their father gave up. And I promise to continue to teach them about all religions and cultures and traditions and why one doesn’t cancel out the other, instead how they can be intertwined and celebrated together. For now they don’t remember donning brightly-hued headscarves in a Sikh temple, or lighting candles on the menorah, but as they grow older these will just be normal events, just like popping into the St Patrick’s to have a quiet thought about those who have left us, or discovering cultures and religions of their own will be. They are US citizens, but also British and Mexican citizens, with France as yet another one of their heritages. My children will be free to choose their own home, if they so please.

When I was struggling to live in the US, fighting with an immigration process that was so backed up and complicated and wrong I promised myself if I ever had kids I would live in the same home for the rest of my life, so they could always join me if they needed to. Time and circumstances has made me realize that this won’t happen, not right now anyway. Maybe we will have a forever place at some point, that beach home I have always dreamed about. In the meantime we will have for-now homes. They have already known three homes in their short lives; a few more won’t faze them. My home is with my family and their home is with us.

But what if their home had always been here? What if all they had ever really known were the same house, the same streets, the same church or temple or mosque? What if the only difference between them and our neighbor’s kids was that they were born in a different country? What if we had brought them here as babies and they had grown up on the same street, gone to the same schools, had the same friends? What if they had always known that they were immigrants but never really felt like it, because they didn’t remember where they were born anyway? What if all they knew of their birth countries were the photos and the stories and the traditions that their parents brought with them? What if their Abuelita was only a voice on the phone? (Actually that last question is true for my kids too). Anyway, what if they were determined to finish college, start businesses, make a difference, but only one thing was stopping them: the wrong birth certificate. Would it be the right thing to do to ask these kids to pick up their belongings and leave without another thought? Only the most ignorant, evil person would answer that question with a yes.

My children were born here, but only because it was where we lived. They will never have to fight for the right to live here like their parents did. They are lucky. Other kids have lived their lives in the shadows, going to school, finding jobs, starting their own families, buying houses and opening businesses, but always knowing that one day it could all fall apart. And then, finally, a few years ago, a bill was introduced that would give them a chance to hop onto the long path towards citizenship. So some of them, 800,000 or so, put their trust in the country they considered home, and signed up. Now that has been taken away from them and they are waiting, in limbo, for a better option, wondering if they will be deported to a country they don’t even remember. Being held in immigration holding zones and detention centers, being threatened with deportation and visa cancellations is nothing new to our family, and if or when it happens again we will deal with it as we have always dealt with everything. But these kids? These Dreamers? They deserve better. They don’t deserve this.

YOU CAN HELP. Call your representatives and ask them to vote NO on a spending bill that doesn’t include a CLEAN DREAM ACT. (Make sure you leave your name and street address if you leave a message). Send them a fax or an email. Jump online and join up in the vigils that are taking place across the country. WE NEED TO GET A CONFIRMATION THAT A CONCRETE CLEAN DREAM ACT WILL BE IN PLACE BY DEC 22nd. This isn’t about illegal or legal or somewhere in between immigration – this is about the lives of youths who have been here most of their lives and call this their home. Trump is trying to use these people as a bargaining chip, and THIS should be illegal.

If these people lose their status then I don’t know if I can call this country my home anymore either. And I will also be teaching my children exactly why we left.

Your Safety Is An Illusion

As a child I would curl up in a chair and devour books about WW2, Résistance fighters, Holocaust stories, and think about how lucky I was to be living in a safe country, protected by our freedom and our laws. I would listen to Tracy Chapman and Bob Dylan and feel inspired to become a real activist, always speaking my mind and never letting anyone put me down. As a young teen I delved deep into feminism and activism through people like Marge Piercy, studied the Civil Rights movement, wishing that I had been alive in the 60’s so that I could have been a part of it. I butted heads with my American history teacher during my first year at university in France, chastised for using the word “massacre” in an essay describing the battle of Wichita Village. There were no massacres apparently. It didn’t matter, I knew I was right, and I was stubborn. I sang to Bikini Kill and Hole, shy but ready to fight for equal rights. I still assumed that I was safe: privileged and safe. When I moved to the US I spent the first few years being proud to live in NYC, discovering a city that brought every part of me into a whole. I finally understood why so many people wanted to live in the US, and despite her flaws, she would be the place I felt the safest. Still, I understood how privileged I was, and how lucky: young working class white girl from England and France, running around the streets of the Big Apple, every opportunity available to me should I want to try it. I WAS safe, I really thought I was.

As I was putting the dishes away just now, relishing in the first moments of calm after putting the kids to bed the too frequent realization that we are NOT safe here washed over me. I live in a country where (just to name a few of the most glaring issues:

• You could be gunned down at the movies, in church, on the street, in a bus, at school, or anywhere else for that matter, at any time.
• Racism is institutionalized and constant: we may all have the same “rights” but POC still have to face racism and aggressions every single day of their lives, even from those who are supposed to be allies.
• People are called “illegals” when they don’t have the documentation that allows them to legally live and work in this country, even those who have been here for decades, or most of their lives.
• Women are in constant fear of losing their reproductive rights.
• Women STILL earn less than men, and POC women usually earn less than white women. For the same position and same job.
• Sexual harassment, assault, and abuse are still rampant in all levels of society, and the president has gleefully admitted to harassing and assaulting women on tape.
• When victims are brave enough to report assault and harassment they are usually blamed, their lives dissected and paraded for all to see, and finally made to shut up. Usually white, male perpetrators get a slap on the wrist, or become president.
• Immigration officials have no qualms about shoving 10 year old post-op kids with Cerebral Palsy in detention centers without their parents, or going into schools to check out possible undocumented fourth graders, or trying to deport adults who have an American parent, but whose other parent forgot to do the paperwork when they arrived in the US decades before.
• We are being governed by a disgusting idiot, most likely thanks to the Russians who have been on a massive hacking spree, probably infiltrating everything they can, in cohorts with the extreme far right wingers.
• Anyone can buy an assault rifle and use it.
• The current administration considers a median income of $450,000 a year as “lower middle class”.
• Climate change is apparently a farce, even though we are faced with the reality of it every single day.

So, no, we do not live in a safe country. We are not at war (unless you consider the “war on terrorism” to be a legitimate war), and there is no civil war raging within our borders. People seem to think that this country is still doing pretty OK, and some delusional individuals even think that this president is going to “make America great again”. But we are NOT safe. Our enemies could literally be anyone, even a neighbor who you say hello to every morning. While there HAVE been some isolated attacks by “radicalized” persons who were not born here, we have a lot more to fear from gun-toting homegrown terrorists than we do from ISIS. And we have a LOT to fear from this current administration, because everywhere you turn a liberty is being knocked down, and down every road you go a roadblock is being thrown up. It’s been a year since the elections now, and nearly 11 months of Trump, and it’s a LOT worse than even I imagined it would be. And I was considered a fearmongerer back then. I fear for my partner and for my children. I fear for my friends who don’t fit in your WASP box (which basically means 99% of them). And I fear for this country as a whole, and for this world in general more than ever.

I used to imagine myself working for the Résistance, wondering if I had possibly been alive in France in the 1940’s in a previous life. I used to imagine working underground during the civil rights movement, always on the run, always challenging the system. And now I find myself, at the age of 39, fearful for our lives and our safety, penning letters and articles and stories, writing faxes to Congress every day, calling representatives I don’t even have the right to vote for, planning escape routes to Mexico and Canada, and generally just wondering what else I can do to make us safe again. I can’t vote here, and even then I am beginning to wonder just how much of a difference it would make (that would never stop me from voting though).

And yes, I know we don’t live in a war-torn country, running for our lives while the government rains down biological weapons on our heads or holds us hostage in our homes. I know that I don’t have to worry about my children being trained to become child soldiers before they hit the age of 10. I know that there is no imminent danger of us all dying tomorrow from some kind of chemical warfare… But I will never feel safe here ever again. As much as we fight gun laws never change. As much as we talk about the benefits of immigration, people still hate us, as much as we talk about the decline of racism, it is still a very prominent and ingrained issue in this country, and as much as we talk about women having equal rights, we are still fighting for real equality. Gay marriage may be legal today, but in the mean time people are pushing through idiotic transphobic laws, and camps to “convert” gay teens STILL exist. So yeah, maybe we aren’t so free after all. And we are definitely NOT safe.

Please, for the sake of us all, do your part in the resistance. Because if we don’t all band together, no matter who we are or where we are from, we are going to wake up one day and find ourselves in a reality we never thought possible. And even those privileges we took for granted yesterday will probably be gone. We cannot let this happen.

(Do your part by voting in local elections today PLEASE).